It won't happen again because Holder has his scope locked onto those heinous cannabis dispensaries in Ca. The Justice Dept has told all Ca. dispensaries to close down in 45 days or risk prosecution and forfeiture. Quite the progressive administration!

They sell guns to drug cartels and then enforce stupid laws that help the cartels. I would look for a Nixonian slush fund of cash from these cartels in some CREEP office safe! Now, I'm sounding like Oliver Stone..I know.

Fast and Furious was apparently an internal ATF/DOJ codeword for an operation.

The operation was ostensibly designed to stop gun-trafficking into Mexico.

However, the operation involved (A) telling American gun dealers to go through with sales to suspected traffickers that the dealers didn't want to complete(B) not intercepting the traffickers when they were inside of American territory and could be apprehended without an arrest-this-guy-and-extradite-him request

There are also indications that the traffickers in question were known to be on the payroll of DEA/FBI as informants in drug-smuggling investigations.

Holder has been denying knowledge of the entire operation, even as evidence mounted that the operation involved ATF, FBI, and DEA, as well as regular reports to higher-ups in the DOJ and the White House.

Guns purchased under this program have been showing up in American and Mexican crime scenes for some time.

Simply put, the operation involved Federal Agents telling Federal Firearms License-holding stores to ignore the law, and occasionally to ignore the NICS background check results, to further an investigation.

But the investigation didn't produce any arrest, and seemed to have been conducted to allow as many guns as possible to travel into Mexico from the U.S.

"The goal was to track the guns to trafficking ring leaders who long had escaped prosecution. ATF lost track of some 1,400 of the more than 2,000 weapons whose purchases attracted the suspicion of the Fast and Furious investigators."

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

The goal was to enact very strict gun control laws. But they ended up killing hundreds of innocent people, and some of our own men.

The fact the holder acknowledged suggests to me the torches and pitchforks are getting closer--And of course an other interesting question would be what Mr Obama knew about it when (OK--that was in my best Senator McCarthy voice)

"They sell guns to drug cartels and then enforce stupid laws that help the cartels. I would look for a Nixonian slush fund of cash from these cartels in some CREEP office safe!"

Closer to the truth than you perhaps suspect. Elements of the US government are drug traffic controllers and use the connections and money to run unknown operations off the books and to guide the money flow to domestic and foreign ideological friends.

It's dirty. It's Caribbean-area based with global powers. Elements of the US government control/own global drug traffic through selected cartels they favor. More creep than you can imagine.

The elements don't sell guns to their cartels, they control those cartels. This particular cartel was cooperating with the elements on this operation to force firearm confiscation in USA so as to give safety to ordinary operations by this cartel and their US government owners/controllers. Dirty.

Elements of the US government are a drug super-cartel, with deniability. Why do voters rush headlong into the arms of government? Drugs.

What? I even used a Spanish phrase, admittedly I think it’s all spelled correctly, even if I’m unsure of the translational accuracy. Anyway you just don’t like him/her because s/he’s so brutally scathing to you and his/her points strike so close to home! (Edit Note: poster rolling on floor laughing hysterically)….. Licker de ofrecer de fútbol

If Obama had a brain he would pull a Lyndon Johnson. The worst thing that could happen to him would be to be reelected and have a republican congress elected. The investigations would never end and in all likelihood a lot of white house people would be looking at prison terms. Fast and Furious is already beyond Watergate and its barley begun.Throw in the corruption of Solyndra (and who knows how many others) and a disaster is heading the democrats way. If Obama steps aside he is safe since no one is going to go after a former president, it's just not good policy.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)No need to beat around the bush: it's the CIA. Working with drug dealers has long been a means for them to raise off the books funds.

Uh yeah, thank you Michael Mann and the San Jose Mercury, but as there is NO evidence of this, beyond the fevered imagination of Hollywood and two reporters, I’m afraid I’ll just point and laugh at you.

Holder, Pelosi, Feinstein, Obama, et al? Shameless? Yes, but more than that--they hold conservatives in utter contempt, thinking most in Congress are spineless gimps afraid of being painted by the MSM as "being partisan" at a time when "the people" just want Congress "to work together" to "get things done." And they're right! And they're going to get away with it ! For these people, both collectively and individually, to continue to insist Gunrunner/Fast& Furious proves the need for even greater ATF funding and increased gun controls on law-abiding American citizens in the face of even the few facts as have been broached (in spite of the Obama Admins best efforts to supress) tales a Lake Superior-sized vessel full of unmitigated gall..

All this also happened under the Bush administration - three years before the start of "Fast and Furious."

As for its predecessor, "Wide Receiver,": prosecutors finally, quietly, rounded up seven suspects last fall. No cartel leaders, just buyers who - critics say - should never have been allowed to put even one weapon on the street, let alone operate for years.

Love, does it make Holder twice as dumb as he knew that Wide Receiver did not work and he doubled up on failed operation? Much bigger than double. DOJ is prosecution the Wide Reciever cases now so he knew.

Love, does it make Holder twice as dumb as he knew that Wide Receiver did not work and he doubled up on failed operation? Much bigger than double. DOJ is prosecution the Wide Reciever cases now so he knew.

Love, Wide Receiver involved a quarter of the number of weapons, those weapons were actually tracked, the U.S. worked with Mexican authorities to make sure any that got across the border still had tabs on them, and once 50 or so weapons were unaccounted for the ATF shut down the program because it was too dangerous.

The Obama admin engaged a gun walking program on a much larger scale, without arresting anyone, without gathering back the weapons sold to straw men, with allowing them to go to Mexico, and without alerting Mexican authorities to what they were doing, without putting into place new procedures to avoid a loss of guns, and with forcing gun dealers to sell to people they new to be strawmen, and was not shut down even after the guns started showing up at dozens of murders in Mexico, only after it became politically inconvenient to the Admin with the death of a U.S. agent. Not quite the same.

the way to ensure it doesn't happen again is for the Attorney General and those who approved it at DoJ and ATF . . .

. . . to be extradited to Mexico to face criminal charges, possibly including murder charges because of the deaths resulting from their criminal conspiracy to smuggle in weapons.

Seriously. The primary victims in this case are Mexicans, so let's hand the perpetrators over to Mexico. It has the advantage that any pardons issued by Obama on the way out won't have any effect, since he doesn't have any authority under Mexican laws to issue them.

Wide Receiver did NOT equal Fast & Furious…No we needn’t prosecute, anyone…except the folks who attempted to walk the guns across the border to México…UNLIKE Fast & Furious, but Obama thanks you for your efforts.

Provide the details of exactly where all of the guns went, who was involved, who got caught, what's going to happen to all of them.

Just saying the previous plan was all worked out for the better is B.S.

ATF "gun-walking" began during the Bush Administration

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer became the first high-ranking official Tuesday to admit that he knew U.S. agents were letting thousands of guns sold in the U.S. fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. But Breuer says the controversial “gun walking” tactics he learned about in April 2010 weren't part of “Operation Fast and Furious,” but rather a previous investigation during the Bush administration called “Wider Receiver.”

Wide Receiver was an operation during the Bush administration similar to Fast and Furious under the Obama administration where illegally purchased weapons entered Mexico instead of being stop by ATF. Under Wide Receiver, which ran from 2006 to the end of 2007, the ATF recruited a gun dealer to sell some 450 assault rifles to known straw buyers and then watched as many of those guns crossed the Mexican border.

Ha! Seems like there's "Plenty O' Outrage!" by the resident Obama Haters here, but I see no equally vigorous calls for the prosecution of those in the Bush administration for their crimes and misdemeanors: mounting an illegal war, mass murder, torture, illegal warrantless wiretapping of Americans.... For that matter, I don't see even the Obama Haters here calling for the prosecution of Obama for targeted murder of individuals abroad, including American citizens, who were not caught out fighting against American troops on any battle fields.

No surprise there, of course. Y'all don't really care about the government breaking the law, just about "getting" the guy you hate.

Love, I'll extradite anyone who participated in smuggling guns into Mexico without the cooperation of Mexican law enforcement. If that includes the principals in Wide Receiver, they go, too.

If, on the other hand, Wide Receiver was done in cooperation with Mexican authorities, well, no, I won't turn over the Wide Receiver people to Mexico for prosecution. And yes, if it turns out Fast and Furious was done in cooperation with the Mexican authorities, I won't turn over the Fast and Furious people.

Love, you're right it was 450 that went through. http://pjmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-gunning-down-the-bush-did-it-too-lie/?singlepage=trueMy point was not that the Bush Admin didn't do anything wrong, my point was that as soon as the operation was revealed to be hugely flawed, it was killed off. The Obama Admin then restarted the program, with even fewer safeguards than before, knowing what had happened previously (no more surveillance jets, no more contacting Mexican authorities when guns made it across the border, and a much larger scale) and that it didn't kill the program after guns started turning up a Mexican crime scenes. It took the death of an American agent to end the program.

Bush's efforts were Keystone Kops. This was something of a whole nother order of magnitude in either incompetence or ideology.

Steven - How the hell do you or does anyone here know how either of the operations were handled? You read the same thing anybody else reads, via the media and other course, who...as we ALL know...only knows what they were told.

Acting as if you know all about what the Obama and Bush administrations did or did not do is pure speculation on your and other's part.

You must have either intentionally missed his point or suffered cognitive dissonance (did you hear a "SPOINK" when it happened) as you read past:

The Obama Admin then restarted the program, with even fewer safeguards than before, knowing what had happened previously (no more surveillance jets, no more contacting Mexican authorities when guns made it across the border, and a much larger scale) and that it didn't kill the program after guns started turning up a Mexican crime scenes. It took the death of an American agent to end the program.

Love, it wasn't though. The program restarted in late 2009, guns had been turning up at Mexican crime scenes in March 2010 (and perhaps earlier) but the program wasn't shut down until December 2010, after Agent Terry was killed. The Obama Admin doubled down on Bush's gamble with half the hand and held it for twice as long.

So it was spoink. If Wide Receiver was hugely flawed, and the government is in the best of hands, the Obama administration would have restarted it (if at ALL) with far more controls, more resources, and such. The fact is, they took a horribly flawed program, removed any semblance of proper controls, and didn't stop it until a US border agent was killed.

So...one hugely flawed program stopped. The next admin takes that hugely flawed program and makes takes "hugely flawed" to eleven. Then they only stop it when someone on the wrong side of the border dies at the hands of their own eleventy hugely flawed program.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)Joe - I have no proof that the guns via Wide Receiver were ever used or not used in any killings.

Because Love, had they been the NYT and Obama would be broadcasting it to the Heavens, as would you, as it is we KNOW that F&F weapons have killed several hundred Mexicans…Why doesn’t Obama care about Brown People?

To all who complimented me: thanks. (I mainly wanted to post an accurate summation for anyone else who asked...)

To those who wondered how I got this summation: I got it by paying attention to Mike Vanderboegh. He has been harping on this operation for most of the past year, since before hints started turning up at the CleanUpTheATF website.

So somebody is posting here who actually thinks firing US Attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the President equates with selling weapons to drug cartels and provides a similarly compelling motive to lie?

Love — Obviously, I don't know for sure. And? If the facts are shown to be different than what I've been told, I'd change my opinion on what should be done. With the supposed fact pattern before me, though, Wide Receiver should not result in Mexican jail time, while Fast and Furious should.

I note, applying your standard of certainty, all that you know about, for example, how many people were killed in Iraq is what other people have reported. How do you know it's true, and shouldn't you withhold judgment of Bush accordingly? Or do you simply avoid that whole problem by forming your opinions without reference to facts, and then only bother with facts insofar as they provide ammunition for your prejudice?

Hombre: "It's difficult to deal with slick liars who have had months to prepare to rehab themselves. I wonder what the committee hoped to gain from calling him to testify."

"Gonzales Digs a Deeper Hole"(Time/Politics)

"Just when it seemed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' reputation on Capitol Hill couldn't possibly get much worse, he showed up Tuesday for yet another hearing. And as with so many of his recent appearances before Congress, his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee raised a lot more troubling questions than it answered — not just about his own conduct of and honesty about the U.S. attorney firings, but also about the Administration's domestic intelligence gathering programs."

IIRC Mr Obama endorsed the Afghan adventure-- But as ScottM correctly points out, those wars have nothing to do with Fast and Furious--and IIRC Mr Holder in earlier testimony denied knowledge and by so doing lied to congress.

You and I have absolutely no idea how many people have been killed via Wide Receiver or Fast and Furious.

If you do...provide the evidence of such.

You and I both think both operations were poorly planned, executed and not what we expect from our own government.

Other than that, almost all that is being posted here represents nothing more than a bunch of conservatives beating up on Holder and the administration....for something the administration they themselves supported...for doing previously.

You and I have absolutely no idea how many people have been killed via Wide Receiver or Fast and Furious.

I also have absolutely no idea how many people you, Love, have killed. Now, we know that Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 people, but for all we know you've killed 100 people. So why is it that Jeffrey Dahmer was sent to prison and you were not? How can this travesty of justice be explained by any thinking person?

Crunchy Frog "Love, If you want to make the point that Wide Receiver was a stupid idea, I don't think anyone here would disagree with you.Even more stupid was the Obama administration doubling down on the concept."

Agreed.

I've never defended Fast and Furious.

I've merely pointed out the over the top hypocrisy of so many of the comments posted here today.

I suppose I should put a sarcasm tag on some of my comments--and if my comments make me look small in your eyes, I rather take that as mark of success. Because, dear heart, I really dont give a damn what you think of me.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)The failed gun-running surveillance operation, code-named Fast and Furious by the ATF, has now been linked to the torture and killing of Mexican attorney, Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez:.

Holder says the carnage linked to Fast and Furious is likely to continue for years.

"Duh." The exhortations to read a book. The wailing that poor Little Black Jesus just can't get a break from those eeeeeeeevilll Rethuglicans. The repetition of "squirrel." The dismissal of anyone trying to keep on topic as being 'silly.'

Joe - So you feel this is fairly intellectual observation from your friend Sofa King? And that it somehow makes me look "foolish?"

"I also have absolutely no idea how many people you, Love, have killed. Now, we know that Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 people, but for all we know you've killed 100 people. So why is it that Jeffrey Dahmer was sent to prison and you were not? How can this travesty of justice be explained by any thinking person?"

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) You can bitch and whine about this all day, but we both know that neither of us have any inkling as to how many have died via Wide Receiver.

Correct

We cannot know how many people died in the Holocaust nor the Rwandan Civil War nor the wars in the Congo, does that mean they didn’t happen? We can know that there ARE reported deaths from F& F and were there any reported for Wide Receiver you and Holder would be trumpeting them far and wide…my conclusion no one died from Wide Receiver, but we do know at least there and possibly 150 more died from F&F….

Arguing from “ignorance” that “we cannot know” something is a poor argument, just barely above the “N’uh Uh” Level of argument. So to sum up so far from you we have “Bush did it”, “Iraq was worse”, and “We can’t know that Wide Receiver DIDN’T KILL 100,00 Mexicans?” And this is one of your good days, right?

Scott - You and other appear to think that when one counters with something that might also relate to those with whom you agree (GOP administrations), relating to such things as ignoring subpoenas and such...that it somehow represents a "deflection."

Well, not quite. It was only stopped when someone blew the whistle that the agent was killed by an F&F gun. This was some time after the killing. The program was NOT shut down when the investigation revealed the F&F connection; only when someone dropped a dime on the connection in the investigation.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)And can I assume this means you've acquiesced and agree that I've been correct here today?

Hypocrisy run wild

Uh no, you’ve had your head handed to you here today…with “Bush did it”…”Iraq, Bush Lied, People Died”, “Uh you can’t PROVE a million Mexicans weren’t killed by Bush and Wide Receiver”, and then your Progressive fallback, “Y’all are just a bunch of hypocrites.” Pretty much everything you tossed out got batted back at your head…only in Jeremy Land does this count as a “victory” for you.

Joe - Every time somebody counters with a different opinion, you all try to gang up and then scream about how you're beating them up or handing their head to them...as if ONLY your comments are relevant.

Why not run over to Sofa King's pad and smoke a joint.

Relax.

Take some time to actually read up on some of this before posting the usual tripe.

You're more worried about F&F or some failed energy company than the 4,000 dead soldiers and 33,000 wounded as a result of the failed policies of the man you supported.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) You're more worried about F&F or some failed energy company than the 4,000 dead soldiers and 33,000 wounded as a result of the failed policies of the man you supported.

I find that kind of sad...and hypocritical

What’s sad is watching you try to flounder around and then try a pathetic attempt at deflection…back to the “Bush Lied, People Died” meme are you? Oh Penalty Points for Over-Use of “Hypocritical”

Try to get this through your thick skull: I find the constant Obama bashing to be sometimes relevant because I don't agree with everything the man does, but...to act as if he has suddenly invented operations like F7F, and that previous ventures are just irrelevant is nothing more than partisan bullshit.

The charges of hypocrisy might carry more weight (>0) is not for one simple fact: Althouse is not Red State. There are no Bush apologists here. "Bush did it too!" is not a valid response, not when Obama seems intent on taking every Bush mistake (and God knows there were plenty) and turning them up to eleven.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)Try to get this through your thick skull: I find the constant Obama bashing to be sometimes relevant because I don't agree with everything the man does, but...to act as if he has suddenly invented operations like F7F, and that previous ventures are just irrelevant is nothing more than partisan bullshit

As the “Previous ventures” had far fewer ill effects and infinitely more arrests I’d say you are reaching…and if by “Previous ventures” you mean Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d say you’re deflecting….

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)And to ask for more money? Even "hubris" doesn't do that justice

The word you’re looking for is Chutzpah. It’s operationalized by pleading for mercy at the murder trial of your parents, because now you’re an orphan. Same thing here, ask for MORE money after the money you just spent killed 150 Mexicans and two US Border patrol Agents, just think what we could do with TWICE the funds!

Holder is a speckled bird. He is covered with cr*p from so many weird interventions. Boricua (FALN), Mark Rich, New Black Panthers, racist DOJ hiring, CAIR protections, denial of protection of the law to non-entitled minorities or belief groups, recommending Weather Underground convicted murderers be pardoned, violating Federal law re firearm records ....

I never had the "pleasure" to read any of Jeremy's posts, so I can't comment on whether Love is in fact them or not. I do know that different people write differently. Its called "voice".

Think of your favorite author. If they had written a book under a pseudonym would you recognize it? What about a letter from your spouse. Or parents?

It's a subtle thing, but can be intuited. The words chosen, the meter of the sentence, the phrases used correctly and incorrect;y, are like a finger print.

Dealing with LOVE just on a rational side, no we can't KNOW if any people died from Wide Reciever. Hell I know people that deny the Holocaust happened. After all they never saw it themselves, and all evidence can be manufactured.

There's this thing we have to have in our society called trust. We have to trust the other person driving the on-coming car is able. We have to trust our bank won't take all the money and go to Hawaii. And we have to trust our government.

But its hard to trust a government when the leading figures are either complete idiots, overwhelmed, or just criminal. Two are grounds for dismissal, the third for incarceration. With out responding to the subpoena requests, we have to make a judgement call. I would LIKE to think the AG for the USA wasn't an idiot, or incompetent, so what does that leave?

Personally, I think nothing is going to happen to AG Holder except a presidential pardon at the end of the angry sock monkeys term. Too many skeletons in that closet to ever let out.

Love the attempted spin. But it just makes Love, et al. look ignorant and mendacious.

About all that we got from Holder yesterday was that his line is going to be that he has over 100,000 employees under him, cannot be expected to know what they are all doing, and just because memos are addressed to him doesn't mean that he read them, or even received them.

We shouldn't have been surprised in the least by this tack by Holder - it was pretty much what he said about the Marc Rich pardon when he was being confirmed for Attorney General. There, he again played dumb, despite having apparently spent a lot of time working on a Marc Rich related case while the USA for D.C.

The other related thing to keep your eyes on with Holder here and his past - one of his excuses for stone walling is that the DoJ IG is investigating. IGs are supposed to be independent. The Obama Administration has pretty well gutted that in a lot of departments, and, in particular, the DoJ, where the IG there is a Holder protege, who worked for him when he was the D.C. USA, and apparently worked closely with him while there, including signing a number of briefs together.

It is a fine line that Holder is trying to walk - on the one hand, that he didn't receive memos directed to him and that if he did receive them, he was too busy to read them, and on the other hand, that he is competent to run his department.

But, in the end, incompetence is probably a better defense than the alternative, that he was aware of, and (implicitly or explicitly) approved, the Fast and Furious program, plus a number of other gun walking programs around the country being run by his department.

But, if Holder was ignorant of Fast and Furious, then who did know about it in his department? To run such an inter-agency, inter-departmental, inter-district program, would require pretty high level participation and approval - most likely at the level of his direct reports.

Getting back to his see-no-evil/hear-no-evil defense - Holder, while mouthing the words that the buck stops with him, was still trying to get off by blaming it all on the size of his department. But, I think that ignores the problem that if his department is too big for him to manage, then why does he think that he is competent to run it?

Holder is a speckled bird. He is covered with cr*p from so many weird interventions.

That is part of what is so interesting here. Holder is, indeed, the most tainted AG that we have seen in most of our lifetimes. And, yes, I am including Nixon's AG Mitchell.

What is scary though is that such a tainted AG can be defended so aggressively by the left, MSM, etc. Gonzales was run off because he may have fired seven political appointees for political reasons. Holder, with a lot of actual blood on his hands, plus numerous other questionable actions during his time as AG, USA for DC, etc, is still considered the paradigm of honesty required for the highest law enforcement official in our country. Apparently because of the color of his skin, and little else and his party affiliation, and little else.